The present invention generally relates to manufacture of motor vehicles and the like, and more particularly, to a method of controlling tire assembly lines in the manufacture of motor vehicles.
Conventionally, for assembly of tires for motor vehicles and the like, it has been so arranged that specific tires for one unit of motor vehicle taken out from a tire pool or storage are temporarily set individually on corresponding wheels for such one unit fed by a conveyor, while the temporarily combined tire and wheel assemblies for one unit of motor vehicle thus prepared, are transported to a tire mounter for being mounted per each one unit of motor vehicle thereat, and then, fed to an inflator for air injection so as to be subsequently subjected to balancing adjustments by a balancer provided at another place for completion of assembly of tires.
The known practice as described above, however, has such problems that, since various apparatuses for the assembly are to be operated by workers or operators, with production planning tables being observed at respective processes, if widths are different in the tires of the same diameter or combinations of wheels and tires are particularly specified in the tires of the same diameter in the case where a plurality of kinds of tires are to be assembled, wrong assembly resulting therefrom may not be found even in subsequent processes, or that a large number of man-hours is required for the transportation between the processing apparatuses or for the assembly of tires, or further that, since a large number of tire and wheel assemblies must be kept in stock for each type of motor vehicle in order to be in agreement with the production plan of the motor vehicle, a large space is inevitably required for the stock.
In connection with the above, there has conventionally been proposed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication Jikkosho No. 53-42882, a tire fitting-in apparatus which includes an arm member mounted on a central shaft fitted into a central portion of a rim so as to project from said central shaft, a pressure roller rotatable about a horizontal shaft and movably supported at an end portion of said arm member for vertical movement, an inclined roller shaft provided on said arm member in a position closer to the central shaft than said pressure roller so as to cross the axis of the central shaft above said rim, and an expansion roller having a trapezoidal cross section and rotatably mounted on said inclined roller shaft. The expansion roller is arranged, at part of its bottom face, to be lower than an outer peripheral edge portion of said rim so as to be inclined to confront said outer peripheral edge, while the arm member and the rim are adapted to be relatively rotatable in a circumferential direction of said rim.
Meanwhile, there has also been conventionally proposed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication Jikkosho No. 53-3527, an air injection device for tubeless tires, which includes a first dome, a reciprocating rod movably supported by said first dome, a pressure piece fixed to one end of the reciprocating rod by a screw, support columns mounted to the first dome for supporting said first dome on a machine frame, an adjusting screw pipe and a depression spring mounted on each of said support columns, an air supply pipe provided in said first dome, an outer casing provided outside the first dome, a second dome mounted to a lower portion of said outer casing, a guide cylinder provided in said second dome, a sliding cylinder provided in said guide cylinder so as to be lowered by air supply from an air nozzle, a pressure contact member provided at a lower peripheral portion of said sliding cylinder so as to be located within the second dome, and a resilient plate mounted to said contact pressure member for lowering a seal portion of a disc wheel through supply of air so as to raise a seal portion of a tire bead as the tire is inflated.
However, it is to be noted that no prior systems have been proposed up to the present which are capable of controlling assembly of tires and wheels through employment of a computer.
It should also be noted here that the conventional tire fitting-in apparatus and the tubeless tire air injection device as described above may be applied to the present invention, although in the present invention, it should be so arranged that jigs are moved by signals from the computer according to diameters and widths of tires to be dealt with.